The Arizona champion., 1887-03-05
THE PRESIDENTS POWER.


 Major Warner, congressman from Missouri, in his recent speech on the Presidents veto of the dependent sol diers pension bill said:
 'It may be that the President has ta- ken council of and associated with the enemies, and not the friends, of the boys in blue. Certain it is if the cru el and unjust charges against them had emanated from less eminent and res pected authority than the Chief Mag istrate, they would deserve to be char acterized as slanderous, if not brutal He has drawn dark picture of the moral turpitude of the men whose deeds of valor have been woven into song and story"
 If President Cleveland is capable of feeling keen satire, these words must have made him wince,. One of the sentences of the veto which would have been brutal had any ether pen save the Presidents written if, IS as follows:
 'I can not but remember that the soldiers of our civil war, Tn their pay and bounty, received such compensa- ,tion for military service as has never been received by soldiers before, since mankind first went to war"
 Less than one month previous to writing this sentence he signed the Mexican pension bill which gave ev- cry officer and enlisted man--now 62 years of age--who served sixty days in the Mexican war, a pension wheth- CT he be rich or poor, dependent or independent. But then two thirds of these Mexican pensioners live in the southern states and large percentage of them fought in the confederate ranks. Was this the reason why Pres ident Cleveland made an exception in favor of this pension bill, and signed it2
 The dependent soldiers pension bill, which President Cleveland says shall not become law, proposed to provide sIs month for soldiers who fought in the Union army and were fortunate enough to escape actual wounds, but who were so disabled in other ways that they cannot now earn living. Sup posing there arc 50, ,ooo of these disa' bled men, it would cost the country little over s7,ooo, 900 annually. But it is not question of cost, it is a question of right. There is no other obligation so sacred as providing for the men who fought our battles when cur national existence was at stake and who are now poor and helpless and unable to procure for themselves the wherewithal for food and clothing. A law of humanity, higher than national honor, demands that these heroes should be guarded from bodily suffer ing. Yet the President of the United States says, they shall not be the recipients of the bounty of a grateful people.
 President Cleveland has set up his will against the will of the people, as by their representatives in congress The bill was passed by the largest majority of any bill during the present session. The constitutionali- ty of the measure is not denied and the right of congress to pass it is con- ceeded. The authority of congress to vote money has no limitations and that body undoubtedly has the right to pension every man who fought in the Union array, should it choose to do so. Therefore in vetoing the bill the President has simply set his will up against the will of the nation and in doing so has taken occasion to smlrch the reputation of the "boys in blue" by accusing,them as a class, of "dishonesty and mendacity."
 For the first time in the history oi this country we are having some prac- ticai illustrations of low the veto pow. CT can be abused. We are proud of cur land of liberty, as we love to call 1t, yet it Is an assured fact, that if the ;ovreign ef Great Britain should exer- pise such arbitrary authority as Presi- dent Cleveland has shown in vetoing the dependent soldiers pension bill, there would be revolution within twenty.four hours that would leave the throne without an occupant.
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 A WISH, Is often, not only father to , thought, but it is often the parent of stupid, reckless statements that